Just because you can share every opinion and detail of your personal life with the world doesn’t mean you should.
This, of course, should go without saying. One scan of your Facebook feed, however, would suggest that it needs to be said. (We’re trying to salvage your career here).
A recent survey published by Jobvite titled ‘The State of Recruiting in 2015’ offered insights into job recruiters’ current priorities, expectations for the next year, and challenges they face when hiring top talent. It determined that recruiters are increasingly harnessing the power of social media to scout top talent – and looked at the ways your online activity is perceived by talent-seekers.
If you smoke weed and drink, cool, all power to you. We don’t believe that public morality shouldn’t dictate whether you are able to obtain a job or not, but professional discretion certainly does. Seriously, hide those high school photos of you passed out on a bed of empty 2-4 cases or ripping an apple bong at the cottage. Over half of recruiters consider photos of alcohol use to negatively impact one’s social presence, while 75 per cent hold that opinion about references to marijuana. In no case does it evoke a positive reputation.
Ok, so no publishing space cake recipes. Almost as bad, however, is misspelling them. Almost three-quarters of recruiters view spelling or grammatical errors in tweets or posts negatively. Oddly, five per cent think it’s a good idea to be bad at English.
While most reasonable human beings would prefer to associate with someone who posts Nelson Mandela quotes over Donald Trump tweets, recruiters really don’t care either way. Eighty-five per cent consider your political affiliations a neutral matter.
They, like everyone, also don’t care much about your selfies. One-quarter do perceive them negatively, however.
So, what can you do? Showing participation in local and national organizations would be a wise move, as would discussing current events and a mature personal presentation.
And if all this sounds like too much maintenance, it’s not a terrible idea to ignore social media altogether.
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